Widow Tracing
by Durriken
Summary: Friends until the last bullet! ...Right?


Overwatch

 **A/N:** Overwatch seems to be a pretty **BIG** thing, don't it? So while I've only played the game for like a grand total of five minutes— _literally_ —I do love the characters, enough to write about 'em at any rate so here we go. ( _Some less-than-trustworthy translations at the bottom!_ )

Chapter Nex: Widow Tracing

 **/**

Just how long had the two of them been standing there?

If she had to guess, minutes? Hours…? Hours felt right, given the strain that began to creep into her legs.

But shifting even a millimeter in any direction would more than likely ensure she didn't live to see the sun rise over whatever lovely London city it was that she had once again met her rival in. So she remained as she was, still, rigid, her trusty rifle aimed perfectly at the woman across from her whose posture so mimicked her own.

That woman? She had the most telltale nickname ever to date: Tracer.

To wit, even if they weren't bitter rivals, even if they didn't collide like two speeding trains at every juncture, the name was too revealing. Not to mention nothing but a glaring light on her ability, which was annoying by itself.

The Mad Blinker. Now _there_ was a nickname, far more fitting than Tracer, because while the spry Englishwoman did possess an affinity for tracing it paled in comparison to her joy of blinking in and out of time's grasp.

At first, it was cute, a blink here, a blink there, maybe three blinks to shake up the monotony. But once she started to blink everywhere—for everything—that's when a line was crossed, a line that didn't even previously exist. Blinking out mid-conversation, blinking into the air to catch a tossed potato chip, blinking after an accident that would have otherwise left her either incapacitated, or dead….

It was safe to say that Tracer had mastered the Art of Blinking—and there was no word or phrase that existed within Widowmaker's admittedly sophisticated dictionary that could accurately describe her hatred of it.

" _Allons-nous la danse_?"

Across from her, Tracer remained as cast from marble even when those venomous lips hissed a lust-infused language.

"Love, we've been dancing all night," she responded, perhaps more cheerfully than the current situation warranted.

That, too, grated on Widowmaker's virtually non-existent nerves, though her outward appearance reflected nothing. " _Peut-être que nous devrions finir_ _…._ "

"Aw, no need to rush things, love! We've got allllll night…."

The younger, lither woman displayed every bit the desire to kill as Widowmaker, evidenced by the way her finger remained firmly over the trigger of her pistol; though her intention was marred somewhat by that ebullient charm. It was her second greatest weapon, next to her terrifyingly simple ability to Blink. Many a Talon member had fallen to Tracer and her near-childish exuberance; it distracted them, left them open to all manner of attack, and Tracer was quite the ruthless lass when she wanted to be.

However, she soon learned that ruthless had a limit, and that limit was Widowmaker who was all but impervious to her beguiling ways. And that bred fascination within the younger Overwatch member, a deep interest that urged her to read up on not only Widowmaker but to learn French as well. Granted, she was nowhere near fluent but she knew enough, and Widowmaker was kind enough to keep her use of French down to what the Englishwoman could comprehend.

It was the least she could do before seeing her off that mortal coil, after all.

"Ya know, I'm always sayin', 'the world needs more heroes, the world needs more heroes', but in order for that to happen, they need a chance…." There was something unnerving in the pause that followed, in the way Tracer's normally docile smile grew cruel. "And they _can't_ have that chance when you an' your birdclaw group're offin' them, right?"

" _Fait sens pour moi_ ," came the drawling response.

"Then, love, do me a favor, yeah? Die?"

Well, that was a most amusing request, the most unusual to date that she could recall, and coming from that babyish face, it coerced a sultry grin from the assassin. " _Non, ma chérie_."

Predictably, Tracer pouted. "Ah, you slag…."

They had to be coming around to the fifth hour mark of this, this stand-off whereby they held each other at gun point. The air was getting no less stifling, Widowmaker's skintight suit was getting no less clingy, and Tracer's cracked goggles hadn't somehow fixed themselves. She was still seeing fragmented versions of her rival, but that was enough; it would only take one of them to even so much as twitch for her to pull the trigger.

Likewise, Widowmaker was a pro at giving the illusion of placidity, yet she was ready to make a large exit hole in the petit woman's back at the slightest whiff of movement.

A crackle of ethereal blue light surged about Tracer's front like a bolt of lightning; it emanated from the fractured device attached to her chest, the ingenious invention of Winston, that chronal accelerator.

Busted.

At last, no more blinking, no more glitching or teleporting, nothi—

Something red sparked from one of the many 'eyes' that comprised of Widowmaker's visor. Her rather expensive "these cost an arm and a leg to manufacture" visor. Her visor which used to be a state-of-the-art piece of stealth equipment, now reduced to a twelve-pound metal hat. The boys back at Talon headquarters were going to be _très énervé._

"Now, thanks to you, ya grape-skinned git, Winston's gonna have a cow!" Over their many battles together, Widowmaker had gotten used to Tracer's whining and complaining whenever she was thwarted in any fashion, but still….

" _Je sens ce que vous venez de dire était raciste_."

Try as she might, and wow did she ever try, there was no hiding the bafflement that flew over Tracer's face as she struggled to parse that entire sentence. And then she gasped, realizing a second too late that she had let herself slip. Widowmaker's smile deepened.

"Aww, what's this? Was that a little too… complex… for the lass with sass?" There was no shortage of mockery in Widowmaker's waspy tone; it dripped off each word in a tease. " _Que c'est mignon_."

The pistol aimed in her direction quivered. Tracer's face was beet-red, no doubt embarrassed, and the struggle not to pull that trigger, thereby ending both their lives, was almost too much to fight.

That is, until Widowmaker lowered her rifle and leaned forward in such a way that her bountiful cleavage, already on display, presented itself quite prominently. She beckoned to the startled Brit with a single curled finger.

"Wh-what're you think you're—" Tracer began, stuttering beyond coherence, her face reaching nuclear levels of red, but Widowmaker quelled her little nervous fit with only a whisper.

" _Venir ici petit chaton et je vais vous apprendre quelques vrais français_." It was all but cooed out, every syllable pronounced with a loving tenderness. "Come play, ma chérie."

Still, that pistol remained trained on the purple-skinned assassin. Then it began to quiver ever so slightly until Tracer couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing. It was a sincere laugh to be sure, not a hint of deceit to be found, and she wrapped her arms around her sides, sinking to her knees on the rooftop.

"Y-you win! You win, you win, you win!" She giggle-snorted, pulling off her goggles to rub at eyes quickly filling with mirthful tears. "That… that last part—bloody brilliant! Ya got me, you idgit!"

Looking quite pleased, Widowmaker took a formal bow, bending low and sweeping her arm across her front, her elegant posture speaking volumes of her training. "We thank thee, Lena," she smirked. "If it makes you feel any better, that last bit? Completely on the fly."

Lena leaned back on her hands, head thrown back to sigh at the twinkling dark canvass of a sky above. "Makes me feel worse, don't it? Not even planned, still beat me." She didn't sound upset about that, only bemused.

And why wouldn't she be?

To recent memory, ever since becoming acquainted, this was the longest duel the two of them had shared, and, quite remarkably, also the first one where they managed to incapacitate the other to a standstill.

Mimicking her rivals sigh of content, Amélie chose to remain standing, shifting her weight to one foot and putting a hand on her hip. "I believe that brings us out of our draw in my favor, no?"

"Yeah..."

After so long of enduring that spritely woman's tendencies, Amélie was more than accustomed to the childish outbursts, such as the one Lena was currently under, what with the blown out cheeks and furrowed brow; she even found them endearing at this point.

It was almost enough to make her wish she wouldn't have to kill Lena one day. But wishes were for _petits enfants_ and she had no time to be coddled by dreams, they never served her well. Truth, however? Truth was a harsh constant. Truth was dependable. Nothing could sway truth.

And the cold truth was that, while close the two of them may have become over their numerous clashes, they were still part of two morally opposite factions, and neither could dominate while the other thrived.

Friendship was next to laughable in more ways than one, which left death by KIA the only remnant of their time together in the near future.

Another more musing truth, while Amélie had a few more resting minutes to ponder it, was the plain fact that their next duel could very well be their last. This one here especially had been long-lasting and brutal, nothing but a flashing dance of bullets that left neither one with the upper hand; they had to exploits moments of fatigue or miscalculation to gain any kind of footing.

Case in point, Tracer's chronal accelerator? It hadn't been shattered by any shady tactic on Windowmaker's part, which, admittedly, would have been preferred if only to save face, but by a wrongly timed teleport that blinked her straight into a wall chest-first.

Not like Widowmaker could laugh, for very long at least, especially when she tripped, seemingly over her own two feet, and kissed the rooftop. All the glass eyes in her visor, shattered in an instant.

Both of them, hobbled by their own hands.

Wasn't enough to stop fighting, even if Widowmaker's visor was no longer recording events; they were both professionals. Professionals with a very clear objective.

"Well, technically, love… I mean, I could just dive at ya', take ya' over the edge of the roof." There was something sinister about Tracer's cheesy grin, like the notion had crossed her mind multiple times and only after a considerable amount thought did she decide to make mention. "Just fweeeeeee, splat. Done. I'm in the lead again. Pretty much forever."

There was little wind to be generated by Widowmaker fanning one flap of her bodysuit back and forth but that didn't stop her from trying as she returned the grin, albeit with a more predatorial flair. "You could, you could, but then… there would be two splats, no?"

It took Tracer, who had been a little preoccupied in watching Amélie fan herself, more than a few blinks to respond, and when she did, it was with a very dazed, "Um… no?"

Widowmaker scoffed, clicking her tongue. "See, _amour_ , you're under the ludicrous assumption that I would ever let you go if you grabbed me." The musing was there, hanging like an open-ended invitation; she even slowed her casual fanning down to an agonizing pace, just to see if it coerced a reaction out of Lena. Her jaw did indeed tighten somewhat, still trying to seem unperturbed. "Oh, but I suppose I could just grapple away from your grasp and save myself."

Now Tracer looked shot, snapped out of her stupor. "Wh-what? Why you backstabbin' minger! You'd let me fall just like that?"

It was freeing somewhat, pulling on the zipper of her bodysuit, tugging it down every so slowly. That little addition, the zipper, had been the most ingenious thing she could remember adding to her arsenal in recent memory, especially with the coming winter months. " _Vous alliez me laisser mourir d'abord, rappelez-vous?_ " she questioned in her sultry native tongue, sighing with relief as the subtle breezes of the night caressed and kissed her exposed, sweat-pebbled flesh. She just about moaned. "Of course I'd just let you die, we're _ennemis_ , _amoureux_."

There was no denying the fact that Lena was clearly trying to count every glistening bead of sweat that adorned Amélie's porcelain skin, noting the way each drop slid, following the natural curve of her figure.

The idle staring continued for a few moments, then even longer, until Widowmaker issued an understanding sigh and snapped her slender fingers. "I'm sorry, what?" Tracer uttered, giving her head an experimental shake.

"You were saying you'd tackle me, I said I'd save myself and let you splatter on the ground, and then you got annoyed by that for some reason," Amélie reminded her, and now she could breathe free again having pulled the zipper to just past her naval. Though she loved her specially designed suit, just wearing it made her feel primal, in absolute control, there was no denying that peeling it off completely had it's own fair share of reward.

"That's right, that's right." When Tracer nodded, suddenly reaching for her twin pistols, Widowmaker's eyes flared, thinking for one wild moment that the Overwatch hero was going to put a bullet in her. And that thought became grounded in cold reality when Tracer proceeded to point it directly at her, trained on a spot between her eyes.

All the air seemed to vanish leaving their surroundings bereft of sound of any kind. Freezing in the act of fanning herself, there was little else for Widowmaker to do other than stand there, poised awkwardly, unable to help the debonair smirk that played over her lips.

"So… _le petit chat montre les dents_ , hm?"

"Always had 'em, love, just wanted to play a bit with this particular ball of yarn before shreddin' it." That same bubbly smile had contorted Tracer's face into something rather clown-like and cruel, and she placed her finger on the trigger. "Now then, back to my original request… _mourir, amour._ "

Even in those final seconds, that charming Brit managed to coerce a haunting chuckle from the assassin. " _Votre victoire_ , _mon cheri_."

A piercing bang split the night and sound returned, sounds of the cars driving down below, of the nightlife skittering every which way in fear, and of a corpse colliding with the roof, splintering some of the tiles.

Almost as if pulling the trigger had taken everything out of her all at once, Tracer's firing arm fell away and hung limp at her side. The smile was gone like she had never known joy, replaced with the smallest of frowns as she surveyed the unmoving body of her greatest rival. A pool of shockingly scarlet liquid was growing underneath Widowmaker's head, growing and spreading, drenching her dark purple locks. Eyes of a fierce gold continued to stare without seeing, those lifeless pupils illuminated solely by the twinkling stars above. Her face, still so beautiful, continued to hold onto the last chuckle she would ever give while streaks of blood oozed from the bullet hole punched into her forehead.

"For Overwatch…." It was pushed out bitterly, that little declaration, and Tracer inhaled with a shudder, gripping her other arm at the elbow in effort to keep herself together. "…For Overwatch…." Head lowered, she repeated the phrase over and over again, each time harder than the last until her voice cracked and she sniffled. "W-we… if it weren't _for_ Overwatch… we coulda been friends… innit, right 'Maker?"

When nothing but searing silence met her ears, something of a sob escaped the Englishwoman and she collapsed to her knees, unable to stand any longer.

"Innit…? I know… I know it is…."

Control was starting to slip as her vision blurred with water; the cold continued to seep in through her sweat-drenched clothes and clutch at her heart, at her throat; the pain of loss was starting to numb everything. And the fact that Lena knew… that she could pinpoint her reason for distress, it caused her to gnash her teeth.

"W-why do I feel so… I can't feel bad… I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't—" More high-pitched and less coherent her chant became until it reached levels only a dog could recognize, "—can't, I can't, I can't, I… I…" Truth overcame everything and she squeaked out, "I can't believe I shot my friend…."

" _Pour être honnête, moi non plus_ , l'amour."

If the shock hadn't struck first, Lena felt quite sure that the sight of Amélie rising up like a zombie from the grave would have caused her to scream and scramble over the edge. In spite of being rendered paralyzed, her jaw dropped, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates as her rival continued to slowly arch herself into a sitting position, one hand pressed to the side of her temple.

She groaned, looking almost annoyed like a bullet to the head was no more an issue than a mosquito bite. "Not even a warning shot first… I'm starting to wonder if you're not on the wrong side _._ " There was something oddly sensual about the way Widowmaker flicked her tongue at the blood dripping down her face, seeping from her wound. "No hesitation, straight for the head, I'm impressed."

Shock had given way to disbelief. Lena couldn't get out a single word, nothing but flummoxed stutters and frantic finger-pointing.

"You know, that really hurt, _mon petit chaton_. Well, obviously, bullets to the head aren't exactly gentle, but still, it hurt more on a mental level, to know that you'd shoot me for Overwatch." A flash of faux-hurt crossed Widowmaker's face, before it faded into a sardonic smirk when it seemed Tracer was stuck on repeat. "What, cat got your tongue?"

"H-h-how—b-b-but I shot… you f-fell and then I—this doesn't make any sense!" Lena finally managed to blurt out.

Being a creature of cleanliness by nature, the feel of her own life fluids matting down her hair and dripping down her the back of neck had Amélie shuddering; a bubble bath was definitely in her immediate future. "How? Silly girl, you _are_ aware that I'm one of Talon's most revered subjects, no? It wouldn't do well to have something they've put so much time and money into die from a mere headshot, it'd be nothing short of embarrassing. If you really wish to kill me…." She petered off, placing a hand that was drenched in blood over her chest. "You'd have to stop this, _mon amour._ "

Lena offered up something of a watery laugh, furiously rubbing at her eyes. "Dang it… had me thinkin' I'd really offed ya, you stupid git…."

"Your ruthlessness is really something to be admired, even if your face is quite a fright at the moment," Amélie chided. "All those tears—and that snot!" Another shudder. "Utterly _dégoûtant._ "

"Sh-shut up!"

Widowmaker's left eye twitched but she continued to smile. She could think, she could breathe, she could even laugh at Tracer's adorable fluster, but one thing she unfortunately could not do was escape the white-hot pain stabbing into her forehead. For every brain-numbing pulse, the urge to bite her tongue off grew stronger, as did the desire to put a slug between Tracer's eyes, just to repay the favor.

Only, she more than likely wouldn't get back up.

Something heavy crashed into Widowmaker's midsection, knocking her right back down into the pool of blood underneath and adding 'lack of breath' to her growing list of discomforts. It took all of two dizzied blinks for her to realize Tracer had performed a lion-worthy pounce at her and was now in the process of trying to break her spine through hugs.

"Love?" she called, one eye closed and grunting with strain. "You're going to hug me to death, I want you to realize this."

When Lena giggle-snorted against her, consequently spattering her with some snot, Amélie regretted ever speaking. "Better than getting shot," came the Englishwoman's garbled response, muffled by a mouthful of Widowmaker's suit, and she only hugged tighter.

"That's true enough, I suppose." With a resigned sigh, Amélie fell limp, abandoning any attempt to free herself. Aside from the obvious fact that Lena was trying to squeeze her dry, she didn't so much mind lying in a small puddle of her own blood. After fighting for so long this was a nice little reprieve. "You do realize that come tomorrow… we'll be back to fighting each other. For blood."

Tracer shrugged, or at least that's what it felt thought she did. "Tomorrow's tomorrow, today's today. Just... lemme enjoy this for a few more minutes, will ya? Lemme enjoy bein' caught in the spiders web."

"Hmhm, whatever you want, love," Amélie agreed, and she closed her eyes, growing oddly content given the situation. "Whatever you want."

 **/**

 _ **Allons-nous la danse**_ _:_ Shall we dance?

 _ **Peut-être que nous devrions finir**_ _:_ Maybe we should finish?

 _ **Fait sens pour moi**_ : Makes sense to me.

 _ **T**_ **rès énervé** _:_ Very upset.

 _ **Je sens ce que vous venez de dire était raciste**_ _:_ I get the feeling what you just said was racist.

 _ **Que c'est mignon**_ : How cute.

 _ **Venir ici petit chaton et je vais vous apprendre quelques vrais français**_ _:_ Come here little kitten and I'll teach you some true french.

 _ **Petits enfants**_ _:_ Little children.

 _ **Vous alliez me laisser mourir d'abord, rappelez-vous?**_ **:** You were going to let me die first, remember?

 _ **Le petit chat montre les dents**_ : The little cat shows teeth.

 _ **Votre victoire:**_ Your victory.

 _ **Pour être honnête, moi non plus, l'amour:**_ To be honest, me either, love.

 _ **Dégoûtant:**_ Disgusting.

A/N: Well, that was fun. If ya thought so, too –or even if ya didn't–review box is right below. Like, right down there. Easy access.


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